Old Dominion University (ODU) has recently announced receipt of a $7 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to aid in the establishment of the Combinatorial Scientific Computing and Petascale Simulations Institute.

As part of an ongoing effort to transform ODU into a leading research university, researchers will develop software for supercomputers working with scientists at Argonne National Laboratory, a DOE national laboratory in Illinois, and at Sandia National Laboratory, a DOE national laboratory in New Mexico, as well as with researchers at Colorado State and Ohio State universities.

The goal of the research is to enable physicists, chemists, and others to achieve breakthroughs in complex areas requiring massive computing power. Applications range from research into global warming to tracking environmental decontamination.